The meme is all gaga over an MIT project demonstrating the ability to power a 60W light bulb up to 6.5ft away from a wireless power coil using magnetic waves. Funny thing is this isn’t news – the announcement was made last November. Two other companies, Powercast and eCoupled are doing similar things. If it proves out, this is a very cool development but the real question I haven’t seen asked is: how efficient is it? Does it take 90W of power to support a 60W bulb? Can it scale to support multiple devices like a wireless power strip?
Wireless charging of your cell phone may be just the break the iPhone and other multi-function devices will need to avoid the Russian Roulette game of managing your power consumption between music, video, email, and voice calls so you’re not caught with a dead phone. Will it replace all your cables in your home? I’m highly skeptical.
One response to “Wireless power: What's the Catch?”
Here is a great site that shows how the wireless power technology works.
http://powercasttechnology.com